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Recovery · Marker 01

HRV · Heart Rate Variability

HRV is the tiny variation in time between your heartbeats. A healthy nervous system isn't a metronome, variation is good.

Educational, never diagnosticReviewed Apr 21, 2026

Common reference range

50–120 ms (RMSSD)

Worth watching
Below 30 ms (RMSSD)
Population median
42 ms
Units
ms (RMSSD)

Your record always keeps the range printed on the report the result came from, which can differ from the range above.

Why it matters

What HRV tells you.

It's the clearest daily window into how recovered you are. But one morning is noise. The seven-day average is the signal.

Heart rate variability is the millisecond-level fluctuation between consecutive heartbeats. A healthy autonomic nervous system produces irregularity, not metronomic precision. The variability is the point.

A single morning reading is almost meaningless. The seven-day rolling mean is the unit of analysis. The monthly trend is the unit of decision-making.

What the record reads

The direction, not one number.

The rolling weekly average, and how it responds to sleep, training, and alcohol.

HRV · ms (RMSSD) · six results

Illustrative series

Once you file two results, the record compares them to each other rather than to a population average, and names the report each value came from.

What can influence it

The things that move HRV.

In rough order of effect, and read alongside your own history rather than on their own.

  1. 01

    Alcohol within 24h

    The single most reliable HRV suppressant.

  2. 02

    Late meals

    Eating within three hours of sleep onset suppresses overnight HRV.

  3. 03

    Training load

    Acute spikes in load, not chronic load, drive readings down.

  4. 04

    Sleep timing consistency

    Variable sleep windows degrade HRV faster than short sleep does.

Daily things that show up here

  • Avoid alcohol within 24 hours
  • Stop eating three hours before sleep
  • Keep sleep timing consistent
  • Take an easy day after a hard one

In your record

What happens when a HRV result arrives.

The same four steps for every result, whether you upload a report or type a value in by hand.

  1. 01

    Filed to its date

    The value is stored against the day it was drawn, with the report it came from kept alongside it.

  2. 02

    Named and normalized

    Heart Rate Variability is recognised as one measure, so the same marker from two labs joins one series.

  3. 03

    Read in plain language

    You see what it measures, whether it sits in the printed range, and what usually moves it.

  4. 04

    Shared only if you say so

    A clinician sees this result when you grant scoped, expiring access, and the view is logged.

This page is educational. It does not diagnose, and it does not replace a conversation with a clinician who can see your history.

Where to go next

  • Start with one report

    Upload a single lab report and HRV is filed to its date, named and read back in plain language.

    Create my free record

  • Find someone to read it with

    The directory opens filtered to clinicians who work with recovery markers.

    Verified clinicians

  • Read the evidence

    The reading list opens searched for HRV, with every study linked back to its source.

    Studies on HRV

Further reading

Longer pieces on this marker.

References

Where this comes from.

  1. Shaffer F, Ginsberg JP. An Overview of Heart Rate Variability Metrics and Norms. Front Public Health. 2017;5:258. DOI
  2. Plews DJ, et al. Training adaptation and heart rate variability in elite endurance athletes. Med Sci Sports Exerc. 2013;45(11):2148-2158. DOI

Reviewed by Dr. Theo Garrett, MD · Cardiology · Last reviewed Apr 21, 2026